


It Says Here

by Luka



Category: Primeval
Genre: M/M, Matchmaking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 12:25:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19887784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luka/pseuds/Luka
Summary: Neither Stephen nor Ryan can understand why they’ve ended up in a spit and sawdust back street pub.





	It Says Here

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to fredbassett for the loan of her Special Forces OCs Lyle and Finn. Claire is mine.

Nick swore and deleted what he'd just written. This whole bloody thing was Greek to him. Actually, scrub that. He knew some Greek. But all this SWM and ALAWP and MBA and GSOH crap was making his head hurt.

He went back to the one he'd written an hour ago: ”Sporty 30-something gay man seeks similar for fun and games.”

Nick beamed at his word play and hit send.

*~*~*~

Jon Lyle belched, drained the can of beer and took another handful of peanuts. Sod this for a game of soldiers, to coin a phrase. 

”Strong, silent 30-something gay action man seeks other for a new adventure."

Yep, that'd do it. He hit send.

*~*~*~

Nick and Stephen had slept together once before they'd both decided that their friendship was more important. The fact that they had also come to the conclusion that Nick wasn't gay helped as well. They'd ended up in bed together after a particularly drunken CMU Christmas party. Nick was still rudderless after Helen's disappearance. Stephen was seemingly uninterested in a relationship with anyone.

Lyle and Ryan had slept together once. The next morning when they’d both woken up with stinking hangovers, they’d agreed that it had been a mistake and they were likely to kill each other rather than admit that one of them was a bottom man. Lyle went back to his old ways which Ditzy likened to the Tesco cheese counter – take a number and wait your turn. Ryan threw himself into his job.

*~*~*~

Nick flicked through the responses. 

“Nick, what on earth are you doing?” Claudia marched into his office and looked over his shoulder.

Nick let out a strangled gulp and tried to minimise the window, but he was too late. Claudia’s elegant eyebrows disappeared up into her hair as she took in the sight of a naked man cutting a cake with his todger.

“It’s not for me,” croaked Nick.

“No of course it isn’t …”

“Really it isn’t.”

Claudia looked at Nick and rolled her eyes. “Nick, I worry about you. It’s about time you took some leave.”

“I’m fine, honestly …” But he was left addressing the back of her impeccably-tailored jacket.

*~*~*~

“You’ve got to be joking!” Claire set her glass of wine down rather too vigorously, slopping the contents over Finn’s hand. 

He licked it reflectively and frowned at the computer screen. “Why?”

“No one has a dick that size. You know what they say about condom sizes – small, medium and liar!”

Finn’s brow furrowed. Lyle shoved him aside without ceremony. “That one,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because. And no one opens their mouth about what we’ve done. He’d dismember us all, limb by limb, if he found out.”

*~*~*~

“Why this pub?” Ryan stared dubiously at the back street spit and sawdust establishment that Lyle had brought them to.

“Why not?”

“What’s wrong with the Hag and Hounds?” Their usual drinking hole – known to Joe and Josephine Public as the Stag and Hounds – boasted a very scary landlady.

“Closed for renovation?”

“It was fine the other night.”

“Water leak,” said Lyle, looking faintly shifty. “Come on, and I’ll buy the first round.”

*~*~*~

Stephen eyed the pub with disfavour. He’d planned a quiet night with some new books on the fossil record, but Nick had been adamant that they go out for a drink. So they were standing outside a very scruffy-looking pub at the other end of town.

“What are we doing here?”

“The Scotch is good,” said Nick with rather unconvincing cheerfulness. 

“You’ve never moaned about the Hag and Hounds.”

“We’ve got things to discuss. Come on, and I’ll buy the first round.”

“Hand me my gas mask so the dust doesn’t suffocate me …”

*~*~*~

Ryan stared around him and wondered how soon he could make his excuses and leave. The pub was deader than the dodos that had come through the anomaly. The only punter was an ancient bloke, sucking his way through a pint of best, his equally ancient terrier at his feet. Lyle was throwing darts in a desultory fashion at an even more ancient dartboard. His phone went off and he glared at the screen.

“Back in a mo …”

Ryan sighed, and ate another handful of pork scratchings – the height of the pub’s culinary capabilities.

*~*~*~

Nick’s mobile blasted out a bracing chorus of Scotland the Brave. “Bugger. I need to take this. Go in and I’ll join you in a sec.”

Stephen rolled his eyes. Nick seemed to possess countless methods of getting out of buying the first round. This one was positively hackneyed.

The pub looked like it had last been decorated somewhere around 1922 – probably the same year that the barman and also the only customer he could see were born. Stephen ordered two halves of best – they could drink up quickly and go somewhere more congenial. As he looked around to decide where to sit – there was plenty of choice – he spotted a familiar figure in the far corner. Of all the unlikely people … And someone he wasn’t sure he wanted to talk to by himself.

*~*~*~

Ryan glanced up and nearly spilled the remnants of his pint. What the fuck was Stephen Hart, a bloke who wouldn’t look out of place modelling in GQ, doing in this dump?

“Captain Ryan …”

“Dr Hart …”

They stared at each other for a moment or so, then Ryan gestured to a seat that had probably been comfy in about 1962. “You’re welcome to join us. Although I assume you’re meeting someone.”

“Us?” 

“Jon Lyle’s around somewhere.”

“Ah, OK. And Nick Cutter will be here in a moment.”

Ryan managed to restrain his lack of enthusiasm. His initial impressions were that Cutter was a stroppy, know-it-all git, who wouldn’t improve with age. He had higher hopes for the professor’s assistant, though.

*~*~*~

Stephen wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or not that Jon Lyle – a man with the subtlety of a bouncing bomb – was likely to come bursting in at any moment. At least it would save him from turning into a tongue-tied adolescent in front of Ryan. He was pretty crap at small talk at the best of times, and this occasion didn’t even come near to fitting into that category.

Fifteen minutes later, they’d discussed England’s performance in the first Six Nations match, their chances for the tournament, the latest Andy McNab book (Stephen relied on the sarcastic summary he’d seen of it in The Guardian) and whether Northern Ireland or the Republic was best for a cycling holiday.

“I don’t know where the hell Cutter’s got to,” said Stephen, setting his phone down as yet another call went to voicemail. “I’ll see if he’s lurking outside.”

“And fuck knows where Lyle is. I’ll check the bogs!”

They both returned five minutes later, shaking their heads. 

“Sod this for a game of soldiers,” said Ryan, draining his pint. “I can’t imagine why the hell he wanted to come here anyway. There are stacks of better and closer pubs while the Hag and Hounds is closed.”

Stephen frowned. “It was open when we went past it earlier.”

“Are you sure? Lyle claimed there was a water leak.”

“Positive. The scary landlady was bollocking that big lad of yours for bringing knives in.”

Ryan grabbed his phone and dialled a number. From the short, sharp message he left, Stephen guessed Lyle’s phone was on voicemail as well. 

Stephen took a mouthful of his beer and winced. “Cutter claimed the Scotch here is good. The beer tastes like raptor piss.”

“I’ll trust you on that,” said Ryan, quirking an eyebrow, and they both laughed.

Stephen, suddenly feeling brave, said: “I’m starving and I don’t want to stay here any longer? Fancy a pint somewhere with better beer?”

Ryan nodded. “I could murder an Indian. We were going to go for a curry later.”

“There’s a good one about ten minutes away. Shall we go there instead?”

“Sounds like a plan to me.”

*~*~*~

Ryan leaned back in his chair and sighed contentedly. The food had been first-rate and his dining companion even better. Once they’d got past the young scientist’s crippling shyness, they’d really hit it off and had talked solidly for four hours. And unless Ryan was losing his touch, he reckoned he might very well be on a promise. Although in this case he was more than willing to take it slowly and not jump into bed with the bloke. After all, they’d got to work together if it turned out to be a one-night stand. And he’d never been quite sure whether Cutter and Hart were shagging.

“Fancy a coffee at mine?” he asked casually. “And I’ve taped tonight’s footie, if you want to watch that.”

He was gratified to see a spark of interest in the other man’s eyes. “Thanks. That sounds good.”

In the taxi back, they chatted casually about football, their knees touching. Ryan shook his head at Stephen’s offer to pay the fare – he suspected he earned substantially more than a research assistant in a university.

*~*~*~

Stephen looked around the flat with interest. In many ways it was like Ryan – masculine and understated. But it was also comfy, with a large leather sofa and a widescreen TV. 

“Nice place,” he said, glad that they hadn’t gone back to his very dull flat that was full of his work books and not much else.

“It’s not so bad. I miss my proper house in Hereford, though.”

Stephen nodded. He’d never really had roots anywhere, and occasionally envied people who did. CMU was the longest he’d stayed in once place.

“Coffee or something stronger?” asked Ryan, heading into the kitchen, which was small but immaculate. 

“Coffee, please. Black, no sugar.”

“Not worried it’ll keep you up all night?” said Ryan.

Stephen burst out laughing and waggled his eyebrows. “Carry On, Follow That Soldier …”

Ryan realised what he’d said and laughed as well. “And for the record I’m very happy to be kept up all night …”

“Oh good. I was rather hoping I wasn’t picking up mixed messages.” Stephen steadied his breathing. Hell, this gorgeous bloke did want him.

“Definitely not. I didn’t want to assume anything.”

Stephen feathered the lightest of kisses on Ryan’s lips. “The football can wait.”

*~*~*~

Ryan stretched contentedly, pulling Stephen closer to him so that the scientist’s head was pillowed on his shoulder. Bloody hell, that had been dynamite – Stephen had come twice with Ryan’s cock embedded deep in his arse. And he seemed to be showing early interest in a third round …

“I could kill for that drink we didn’t have earlier. And some toast …”

“Blimey, and you scarfed down that curry and naan earlier.”

“Sex always makes me hungry,” said Stephen, flicking the tip of Ryan’s lax cock and grinning at the definite twitch this induced.

When Ryan returned with a tray of toast and coffee, Stephen was sitting up in bed staring at his mobile phone.

“Anything wrong?” It would be just their luck to be called out to a shout, even they were technically on down-time.

“Bloody weird text message from Cutter. I turned the ringer off when we went for a curry.”

“What does it say?”

“’His name’s Tommy and he’s an action man.”

“Eh?” Something made Ryan reach for his phone, which was in his jacket pocket. He’d put it on silent as well in the curry house, and hadn’t checked it since. And there was a message from Lyle: ‘His name’s Steve and he likes sport.’

They exchanged phones and read the messages. “No one ever calls me Steve,” said Stephen.

“And hardly anyone calls me Tom, let alone Tommy. Last person to call me that was my primary school teacher, because there were three other Toms in the class.”

“It’s almost like they’ve been matchmaking. But the names thing doesn’t make sense. And Cutter’s the last person I’d think would do something like that.”

“And my lot know I’d cut their balls off if they interfered in my private life!”

Stephen winced and rolled his eyes theatrically, cupping his balls in his hand protectively. Ryan laughed and leaned over, enveloping one, then the other, in his mouth, and feeling Stephen shiver beneath him.

“Don’t … I want to come with you inside me again. Anyway, I think the pair of them have got some explaining to do. Bloody Cutter …” But Stephen’s words lacked bite, and Ryan suspected he tended to cut the professor a lot of slack.

“Trouble and Lyle belong in the same sentence. So let’s leave the buggers hanging. By Monday, the nosy fuckers’ll be climbing the walls. And anyway, the toast’s getting cold.”

Stephen settled back against the pillows and broke off a corner of toast, feeding it to Ryan. “Plenty of time to test the action man theory, then.”

Ryan kissed Stephen, licking butter off his lips. “Yep. And I can find out how much sport you really like …”

Stephen grinned. “Oh, I’m more than willing to go into extra time!”


End file.
